


Evaporated

by icantbestill29



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icantbestill29/pseuds/icantbestill29
Summary: A speculative story set between episode 7, "Gag or Throttle" and episode 8, "Guillotines Decide."What does Rachel do now?





	Evaporated

The darkness doesn't bother her. She was accustomed to it by now. This time she _invited_ it in, welcomed it, and the thought gives her a tiny shiver of pleasure.

The pain doesn't bother her. Logically, she knows she can't feel it because of the morphine spilling into her veins but she can't feel it _anywhere_. This time she _invited_ it in, welcomed it, and the thought buzzes in her head, making her lips curl up ever so slightly.

 _Control_.

She is in a bed, in a room, that is not her own, in clothes that are not her own. She is spent but not weak and her pulse is beating a strong steady rhythm as she brings two fingers to her jugular vein. There is no sense of time. She has been waking in fits and starts. Has she been here a few days? A week?

"How are you feeling?" Siobhan's question as she enters the room isn't peppered with endearments but Rachel hears them anyway. Without waiting for an answer, she lays a cool hand against the side of her forehead that isn't swathed in bandages.

"Checking for infection," She murmurs, satisfied with the results. "We started you on antibiotics straight away, but just in case." She takes a careful seat next to her, the mattress shifting slightly under her weight.

Rachel swallows the words that rest on her tongue, that she knows the drill, but instead she manages to say, "I want to sit up, please." Siobhan's on the ready to protest, she can see it, but she says nothing, just nods, and eases her into an upright position as Rachel stifles a groan at the effort, taking in extra air to make up for the exertion.

"You lost a lot of blood, Rachel." She is matter of fact, her eyes locked on Rachel's face. "In case you were wondering how long you have to be here. Not only that, but I'm sure you know there are people looking for you. And none of them are particularly happy."

She tries to laugh, she _wants_ to laugh, but it gets stuck in her throat halfway, coming out more like a strangled gasp. "I never asked you to save me, you know. You could've walked away, Siobhan."

"Oh but you did ask. The second before those elevator doors closed." She regards her calmly. "And letting you bleed out, alone, is the same as letting them win."

 _No_ , she wants to say, _no, you don't understand. You could never_ \-- "Why?" That wasn't what she intended to say, it wasn't at all, but she keeps going, grasping the edges of the bed. "Why did you call in these favors when it would have been so much easier..."

She hates how watery her voice sounds and she half expects the other woman to call her on this weakness but Siobhan just sits, patient.

"Rachel." There's no pity and for this small solace, she is grateful. "I couldn't let you die anymore than I could let any of them. You can be free of this. All of you. You don't have to be anybody's experiment."

The other woman touches her forearm, curls her fingers to rest her thumb on Rachel's elbow. And she knows she should be startled by the gesture, by the fact no one _touches_ her, and she expects herself to flinch but she doesn't. Siobhan's hand lingers a few more seconds before she drops it.

"I have a plan. It's all set in motion. You just have to agree to it."

"Agree to it?" What would she be agreeing to exactly? She had been agreeable her entire life, she had wanted to please them and for what...to end up with nothing. She would end up with nothing.

"Siobhan." She forces herself to push past the thickness in her throat. "I gave Sarah her daughter back. I don't owe them anything else."

"No, you don't. But you don't want to be alone at the end of this, Rachel."

Her words come flooding back from the night she'd gone to the house to fetch _Kira._ One day, she'd need them. That's where Siobhan was wrong. She'd needed her parents. She'd needed someone to love her. She had needed to know she was special.

She didn't _need_  anything anymore.

"Let me give you some time to think about it." She stands, taking a cup of water from the nightstand and brings the straw to her lips, helping her back to lay against the pillows after a few big sips. "I'll be back."

There is a hand again, this time on her shoulder, and she feels herself lean into it, just a little. She listens to retreating footsteps, watches as sunlight streams in through the blinds. The room is silent. Reaching up into her sleeve, she finds it. Red flecks of dried blood dot blue and she brings her index finger up painfully slow, to stroke the string.

It suddenly dawns on her what Siobhan was really saying. Of course she didn't need them. She hadn't _needed_ Ferdinand either. She hadn't needed John with his false promises and she certainly hadn't needed her parents to give her to an institution to be raised by robots.

They needed _her_ . _Sarah_ needed her. Without her, they wouldn't survive. A half smile plays at her lips. It was her great power to rise against the brokenness. This she knew. So she would help them. But they would do it her way, they would bring DYAD down the way she saw fit.

 

She would burn it to the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't you know I'm numb, man  
> No I can't feel a thing at all  
> 'Cause it's all smiles and business these days  
> And I'm indifferent to the loss  
> I think that there's a soul somewhere  
> That's leading me around  
> I wonder if she knows which way is down
> 
> Evaporated- Ben Folds Five


End file.
